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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 5033329" data-attributes="member: 63">This Sunday I'm running part 2 of a 3 session sci-fi adventure. Then afterward we're all going to see Avatar. I have the lofty goal of making the players come away thinking my game was cooler than the 300 million dollar James Cameron flick, so I could use some help.Short Background[sblock]Session 1, the PCs awoke on a sleeper ship that had been captured by aliens. They'd been in stasis for 200 years, during which mankind had developed FTL travel. A group of soldiers were coming to rescue the PCs, and while the PCs managed to escape, the soldiers all died, and the FTL ship's main AI was infected with a virus and died. The transport shuttle AI was able to fly the FTL ship to safety, but now the PCs have a tough mission.They left behind a lot of their fellow crew on the sleeper ship, who will likely be experimented on and driven mad by the aliens if the PCs don't rescue them. It's a several-month trip back to Earth, so they can't go back for reinforcements; if they want to save their crewmates, they have to man up. They have access to lots of sci-fi weapons and gear -- beam cannons, gravity generators, hyper-healing kits, etc.The complication is that their ship's fuel supplies were damaged, so even if they rescue the captives, they wouldn't be able to get back to Earth. There is a planet within range that has the fuel they need, but it's controlled by 'pirates.' Just because space pirates are cool.[/sblock]So I need some help coming up with a 4-hour adventure involving space pirates. The sky's the limit; I'm using homebrewed rules, so I can make up stats for anything you can come up with. My basic idea right now is that the pirates having a mining operation where they use mecha to extract the hazardous exotic matter that FTL ships use for fuel. The main mining operation is in a jungle, and the pirates could have used 'slave collars' to mind control a few of the native megafauna. Plus we have battle mecha, and probably some sort of VTOL airships.How do I fit it all together, though, and pace it nicely? Imagine you were designing a video game; what cool set-pieces would you want to see?How about:Stage 1 - An orbital space elevator platform. The PC's ship can't land, so they have to either negotiate with the pirates, or commandeer the station so they can take the space elevator down. This gives us a chance for some ship-to-ship fighting, or ship-to-station, followed up by a boarding action. A nice FPS feel of moving and shooting. Stage 2 - Ambush. As they reach the ground on the elevator, the pirates stage an ambush, perhaps with an airship to pin the PCs down, and slave-collared animals to attack them. For added drama, the elevator could attach to a cliffside jungle station, so there's perilous falls, indoor facilites to hide from the airship, and forest to maneuver through. Stage 3 - Mining Base. The pirates set up their three mecha in a defensive perimeter. These are more like Matrix Revolutions mecha than full fledged battlemechs, but they're still tough. PCs could hack them maybe. The pirate commander should have a cool personality, and be involved in the combat in an interesting way. Maybe he could have been on the airship before, and it flies away after taking a few hits. Best bet to shoot it down is to take control of a mecha (hack it, or kill its pilot and climb in). At the end, they get their fuel, and now that they're more familiar with their weapons and tech, they can stage the final assault on the aliens next week.But that's just a skeleton. I could really use extra ideas.Maybe go for some mecha vs. airplane action:[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk&feature=player_embedded[/ame]</blockquote>

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